As I write this, we are in the midst of Pride Month (June) and preparing, both at Trinity and beyond, for the Reading Pride Celebration (in July). People are sometimes surprised that I have long been an advocate for the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ Christians. They assume that, since I’m a happily-married straight white male, I probably don’t have much skin in the game.
While I’ve never been excluded from the church because of who I love, how I express my masculinity, or how I move in the world, I take this work seriously because LGBTQ+ inclusion is profoundly theological. As Lutherans, we have two deep and long-lasting theological commitments that lead us, perhaps more than other Christians, to affirm our LGBTQ+ siblings in Christ.
Our first commitment is to the idea of original sin. Original sin was St. Augustine’s way of explaining the world’s profound brokenness. Why is it that, no matter how hard we try, we can’t treat one another with love, justice, and care? Why do we walk away from God, even when God is trying to shower divine goodness upon us? Augustine was following St. Paul, who wrote in Romans: “I do not understand my own actions; I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” We might be able to intellectually understand what is right, but between thought and action there is a gulf we just can’t cross, and we end up taking the easy way out–the broken way, the sinful way, the human way.
This is true of all of humankind. Brokenness plagued St. Augustine, festered in St. Paul and plagued Martin Luther. It’s true of me and it’s true of you. Some Christians believe that it’s possible to overcome Sin in this life–and this holiness theology has dominated the conversation, especially in the United States. But we as Lutherans don’t believe in this at all. All of us are similarly broken, and only by God’s grace in Christ are we saved from the deserved penalty for our common state. Sin is a system that we can’t escape, not a list of actions we should try to avoid.
We need to start with original sin because, in our modern discourse, certain things–often actions of a feared or misunderstood minority–are called sinful, while more commonplace forms of our shared, human brokenness get a free pass. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and especially transgender Americans have been targets of this kind of rhetoric for a long time, unfortunately. As Lutherans, we affirm that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Not some, easy to scapegoat, but all. In our relationships with one another, we’ve fallen short. In the ways we seek personal pleasure instead of the good of the other, we’ve sinned.
We are all sinners saved by God’s grace. God’s grace saves us even though we continue to live lives that don’t measure up. God makes us holy because our Holy Lord Jesus died on the Cross for us, not because we have made ourselves so.
The second commitment we need to remember is the Lutheran idea of marriage and relationship. Marriage is a human estate, highly esteemed and blessed by God, but it isn’t a sacrament. It has existed for as long as humankind has, because humans naturally seek refuge from this world in the affection of another–not merely as a way to “be fruitful and multiply”.
Luther and the reformers believed that mandatory celibacy–something well-known in the Middle Ages for clergy and monastics–was unnatural and unrealistic, bound to create worse consequences because people were denied the physical and emotional refuge that a life-long, covenantal relationship provides.
These two strands–an emphasis on humanity’s common brokenness as well as our human need for a relationship that can serve as a safe harbor in this world, satisfying our need for companionship and affection–are what lead us to affirm LGBTQ+ folks and their longing for grace, companionship, and love. This longing is not unique, but rather part of our common human story, and the marginalization of this community is something we as the Church must confess as part of our larger sinfulness. Even as the people of God, we often do not do what we want, but the very thing we hate.
And this logic isn’t just applicable to this issue. In so many areas, we can seek to cease counting our sins and instead emphasize that Christ’s work on the cross is enough to cover all of humankind’s ills. After all, that is why God became one of us in Jesus–to solve this eternal problem and free us up to love God and serve our neighbor. This is the work of Christ’s church.